Horatio
Alger (1832 - 1899) was one of the most influential
American authors of the 19th century, who wrote Debt of Honor,A , The Story of Gerald Lane's Success in the West.
A prolific author, he wrote more than a hundred books on the same
theme: that honesty, cheerfulness, virtue,
thrift, and hard work would be rewarded with success.
While his plots and dialogue sometimes lacked creativity, he can
be credited with helping to create an uniquely American philosophy
of Strive and Succeed. Titles such as Sink or Swim,
Shifting for Himself, and Debt of Honor,A , The Story of Gerald Lane's Success in the West convinced generations
that they could triumph over their circumstances and become an Alger
Hero.

Horatio Alger, Jr.
1832-1899

1. Who was Horatio Alger?
Horatio Alger, Jr. was an American author (1832-1899). Alger
produced the one of the first boys' adventure series. Alger
published over 118 novels in book form. Another 280 novels were
produced in magazines along with more than five hundred short stories.
His young heroes succeed through a mixture of pluck and luck.
They are lucky, in part, because they deserve to be lucky. A
given hero may appear in several books, e.g., "Ragged Dick,"
but the books do not have a common set of characters. Regardless
of their names, the heroes are remarkably similar. Horatio Alger,
Jr. was the oldest of five children of a debt-ridden
New England, Unitarian minister. He was very frail. He
was under weight and undersized, suffered from bronchial asthma, and
near sightedness. Because of his poor health, the family deferred
his introduction to the alphabet and reading until he was six years
old. He started formal school at age 10 and achieved Phi Beta Kappa
at Harvard. He was ranked eighth in a class of 89. He
volunteered for the union army three times and was rejected three
times because of his asthma and small size (just over five feet and
about 120 pounds). Horatio Alger, Jr. taught school or tutored school
children for a good part of his life. His most famous student is
Benjamin Cardozo who went on to be a Supreme Court justice.

2. What has he written?
Horatio Alger wrote mostly juvenile fiction: short stories, serialized
novels, and novels. He also wrote biography, juvenile biography (James
Garfield, Abraham Lincoln, and Daniel Webster), and poetry. He did
someserious writing for adult publications (essays), but he was not
nearlyas successful at that.
The Horatio Alger Society includes lists of his publications and their
various editions for collectors. The most comprehensive list of Alger’s
publicationsis Bob Bennett’s_ A Collector’s Guide to the Published
Works of Horatio Alger, Jr. (1832 – 1899)_MAD Book Company: Newark,
Delaware, 1999).
Many of the books were sold after Alger's death and after the copyrights
had expired so careful records were not kept. Printers frequently
printed unauthorized editions at the same time they printed authorized
editions. The unauthorized editions were sold by the printer with
no fee paid to the publisher.

5. Why is there so little accurate
information about Alger?
Alger's sister Augusta inherited all of his papers. She detroyed
virtually all of his personal papers. In the Victorian era, it was
not unusual for an author or his/her relatives to purge the personal
papers of anything that might be unseemly. To the Victorian mind,
virtually any eccentricity was unseemly. This bowdlerization occurred
to the personal papers of Louisa May Alcott, Sir Richard Francis Burton,
Lord Byron,etc.

6. Why is there so much disinformation
about Alger?
In 1928 Herbert Mayes published a fraudulent Alger biography entitled:
Alger: A Biography Without a Hero. Mayes even fabricated a diary
for Alger which detailed a life of carousing and womanizing. The
Mayes biography became the basis for the entry in the Dictionary of
American Biography. Mayes did not admit the fraud until 1976. As
late as 1963, an Alger biographer with academic credentials, John
Tebbel, repeated all of the Mayes fabrications, supposedly after verifying
his sources.

7. What Alger novels are available
on the Net?

Struggling Upward

Cast Upon the Breakers

The Cash Boy

Joe the Hotel Boy

Paul Prescott's Charge: A story for boys

The Errand Boy: or, How Phil Brent Won Success

A Fancy of Hers

Driven from Home or Carl Crawford's Experience

Frank's Campaign or, Farm and Camp

Paul the Peddler, or, Fortunes of a Young Street Merchant

Phil the Fiddler

8. What movies been made from his books?
A Disney movie _Newsies_ deals with the 1899 newsboy strike in New
York City. The movie is not based on a Horatio Alger story but it
does depict the life of the newsboys that figured in so many Alger
stories. The informal web site of the movie is referenced on the
Horatio Alger Resources web site. If any movies have been made from
Alger stories, they should have been made between 1900 and 1920 at
the peak of his popularity. They would have been silent movies.
So far none of the FAQ readers have turned up an Horatio Alger silent
movie (or talkie).

9. What are some good
Alger biographies? Some bad ones?
Gary Scarnhorst with Jack Bales, _The Lost Life of Horatio Alger,
Jr._ (Indiana University Press: Bloomington, IN, 1985) Many poor
biographies are based on the 1928 Mayes book mentioned above.

10. What is the relationship between Horatio Alger
stories and the subsequent The Rover Boys, Tom Swift, Hardy Boys,
and Nancy Drew Series?
Horatio Alger worked with a younger writer, Edward Stratemeyer, an
editor at Munsey Magazine. Before his death, Alger's arranged
to have Stratemeyer finish the works that Alger had in progress.
The Alger books "completed" by
Stratemeyer include:

Out for Business

Falling in with Fortune

Nelson, the Newsboy

Young Captain Jack

Jerry, the Backwoods Boy

Lost at Sea

From Farm to Fortune

The Young Book Agent

Randy of the River

Joe, the Hotel Boy

Ben Logan's Triumph

Stratemeyer was a prolific author and went on to set up the Stratemeyer
Syndicate which was responsible for the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew.
After Stratemeyer's death, the syndicate operated under the leadership
of his daughter Harriet Adams Stratemeyer.

11. What is the formula for an Horatio Alger story?
An adolescent boy with a rural back ground sets off to earn his
livelihood in an urban setting. He triumphs over circumstances
and temptation and starts advancing in his career. At some point,
he will be betrayed or falsely accused by one of his peers. Ultimately,
the hero will be vindicated. While pluck and hard work play a role
in the success of an Alger hero, there is always an older male who
takes on the hero as his protégé. That mentor plays a critical
role in the success of the Alger hero. The Alger hero never takes
revenge on those who mistreated him. He secures what is rightfully
his, but he is never vindictive. Alger heroes never have romantic
interests. As they leave adolescence, these heroes leave his books
except to play the role of mentors for the new generation of Alger
heroes.

13. What does the Horatio Alger "Strive and Succeed"
philosophy consist of? Are there contemporary versions of it?
There are several elements in the Horatio Alger "Strive and
Succeed" Philosophy:

hard work

study (informal rather than formal)

loyalty to superiors and subordinates

abstaining from alcohol

frugal living

importance of dress and personal grooming

personal integrity

speaking and writing effectively

non-credal religious values (Unitarian)

avoidance of violence and revenge

speaking the whole truth

brotherhood of males (family without a mother)

obligation to help and protect the weak and unfortunate

duty to mother and/or sisters

courtesy to all

accepting the success of others

emphasis on a secure home

accept assistance of benefactors

expectation of own success, acceptance

eschew class hatred

The Alger success formula seems very like what one finds in _The Autobiography
of Benjamin Franklin_. Alger's code is less pragmatic and more altruitstic
than Poor Richard's. Alger's code imposes significant personal obligations,
but it is not at all individualistic. The Alger code does not seem
to have much in common with those individuals labeled "Horatio
Alger success stories." Some modern conservatives object
to Alger’s liberal philosophy. W. S. Ross even provides an example
of an Alger novel (_Struggling Upward_) with all that pernicious liberalism
deleted.

1881 instant book, biography of James Garfield From Canal Boy
to President

1883 tutors young Benjamin and Elizabeth Cardozo

1885 tutors Lewis Einstein

1885 - 1899 liberal Republican (mugwump) themes in novels

1886 - 1896 revival of Alger popularity, 39 serial novels

1892 attends the 40 year reunion of his college class

1896 leaves New York permanently

1898 Alger, ill, selects Edward Stratemeyer to complete the
books he has started

1899 died - Alger's sister Augusta destroys his personal papers

1900 - 1910 many more Alger books sold (in cheap editions)
than during his life time

1926 Alger all but unknown

1940 - resurrection of the Horatio Alger myth and canonization
of his heroes

15. How did Horatio Alger, Jr. come to leave the ministry?
Early in 1866, Horatio Alger, Jr.'s contract was up for renewal.
Some members of the church board did not want to renew the contract
because they were concerned that Alger was not married and that
he seemed to spend too much time with the congregation's group for
boys, the temperance cadets. Other members of the board supported
Alger. In the absence of specific allegations, they felt the contract
should be renewed. The board delayed the decision for a week and
launched an investigation of their minister. The thirteen year
old son of a member of the church board, after questioning, told
his father that Alger had had sexual contact with him. The boy
had gone to Alger's rooms to return a book, leaving his younger
sister in a carriage. When the boy entered his room, Alger allegedly
locked the door and molested the boy. The ensuing investigation
named a second boy (aged 15) as being involved with Alger. The
report of the committee implies there may have been other boys involved.
Alger did not reply specifically to the charges. Rather he admitted
to acting "imprudently." The charges did not use clinical
language. Rather they mention "unnatural familiarity with
boys." To avoid a public hearing on the charges, the
church board allowed Alger to resign from his post and the ministry
and leave town immediately. Subsequent to leaving Brewster,
Alger continued to publish in youth journals affiliated with the
church. When a member of the Brewster church complained that Alger's
influence over young boys was dangerous, the publisher of the journal,
Joseph H. Allen, a church elder familiar with the Brewster incident,
replied that Alger was entitled to earn a living. Scholars
did not unearth evidence of the Brewster incident until more than
one hundred years later. Apparently, the records of the local church
in Brewster and the Unitarian Convention were incomplete on this
point. This is to be expected since the mater did not proceed to
a formal hearing. Part of the Horatio Alger formula is that
the hero is falsely accused and loses his job because of manufactured
evidence. The motivation for the false evidence is that someone
wants the hero's job. The Horatio Alger hero leaves quietly without
responding to the charges. Later events exonerate the hero. This
element of the formula dates from before the time of the Brewster
episode. Shortly after the Brewster incident, Alger wrote
a poem "Friar Anselmo" whose subject had committed some
significant sin and devoted the rest of his life to good works as
atonement. The friar achieves some sort of peace, realizing the
world will be a better place if he continues to live and continues
his ministry. For Alger, writing for boys was his ministry.

16. What authors have updated or parodied the Horatio Alger
formula story?
Theodore Dreiser frequently parodies Alger. _The Financier_
is an attempt to modernize the Alger myth. Its hero is Frank Algernon
Cowperwood. Raymond Feist, the science fiction writer, has
used some Horatio Alger themes in the Serpent War Saga. F.
Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is an Alger parody.
Gatsby is the antithesis of the typical Alger hero. Lawrence
Sanders, the writer of hard-boiled detective fiction, wrote two
stories for _Playboy_, "The Adventures of Chauncey Alcock"
(April, 1972)and "The Further Adventures of Chauncey Alcock"
(December, 1972). The stories are sex comedies in the Horatio Alger
style. A Nathaniel West novel, _A Cool Million_ parodies the
Alger formula quite mercilessly (literally tearing a classic Alger
hero into pieces, limb by limb) and simultaneously uses his language
(whole paragraphs out of Alger novels). Hunter S. Thompson,
_Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas_ parodies the Ager myth. Raoul Duke,
Thompson's alter ego, refers to himself as a "monster reincarnation"
of Horatio Alger. In the movie, Johnny Depp plays Thompson.
Or, more precisely, Raoul Duke, the alias Thompson uses while he
and Acosta scam their way from Glitter Gulch to the Strip in search
of "Free Enterprise. The American Dream. Horatio Alger gone
mad on drugs in Las Vegas."

17. What is the Horatio Alger Society?
The Horatio Alger Society is a group organized " To further
the philosophy of Horatio Alger, Jr., and to encourage the spirit
ofStrive and Succeed that for half a century guided Alger's undaunted
heroes ..."
The members of the society are Alger collectors and scholars. Many
collect other juvenile series as well as Horatio Alger. The Newsboy
is the official newsletter of the Horatio Alger Society. It is published
bi-montly (six issues per yearThe Horatio Alger Society has its
own web site: http://www.ihot.com/~has
The e-mail address for the Horatio Alger Society is
has@ihot.com

18. Did any of Alger’s juvenile novels have female protagonists?
Two of the juvenile novels had female protagonists: _Helen
Ford_ (1866) (prior to Ragged Dick) and _Tattered
Tom_ (1871)(after Ragged Dick)